


Triptych

by gazeteur



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 20:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11790777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gazeteur/pseuds/gazeteur
Summary: The Lantsovs, seasoned partners in crime, devise a plan to steal a work of art.





	Triptych

It is late: a glance downwards reveals the minute hand on her pearl-faced wristwatch gradually worming its way to 11 am; it is packed: a sea of tastefully blonde chignons and balding, greying heads are all Alina can see in her towering heels; he is not here: meandering away, surely, to leave her behind in this high-security auction room with the tools up her skirt and a damning blueprint tucked into the programme in her hand.

Then the auctioneer strikes once with his gavel; chairs are dragged—as refined a sound as they come—heads fall, and chatter dies down. Alina sits as well, careful not to wrinkle her suit or to jostle the pouch strapped to her thigh.

“Hey.”

Alina whips around at the word, before masking her abrupt movement with the purposeful cross of a leg. "There you are," she says. Sensing the turn of heads around them and a slight hush in conversation, the last syllable turns from forceful to gentle.

Alina hates this, this posturing and feigning and preening among politician’s children and celebrities and other figures of note. Her imperceptible slip in composure will no doubt be a conversational subject when they break for lunch. Also, there are other, crasser, things she wishes to do to scandalise the women. But dreams must remain dreams.

Nikolai leans forward to peck her on the cheek. At the same time, she hisses a different set of words in his ear, "Where were you?"

“You know me, being fashionably late as always.” His answer comes easily, betrayed by a slight grimace before his face smooths out again. Nikolai settles into the flimsy fold-up chair like it’s a throne. “But seriously, I was disabling the surveillance cameras. It was easy, by the way. If I knew beforehand that the security in the Ravkan Art Museum was that meagre I would have—“

“You will do no such thing,” Alina warns.

“Ah, but at least let me do this.” He raises an auction paddle that has materialised from out of nowhere, the gesture as effortless as his smile.

Alina feels her heart seize before she looks away, back to the podium. A piece of art has been placed on the pedestal, the first one of the day. In their brief conversation she has missed the auctioneer’s lauding of the painting’s fine brushwork and the artist’s illustrious dealings with the medium, and the room has now segued seamlessly into the fast-paced tempo of bidding.

The bids climb higher and higher.

The frown on her face deepens, as Nikolai makes no move to lower the paddle.

What was initially a five-way fight swiftly dwindles down to three, and then two—the auctioneer’s voice rising both in urgency and excitement in tandem with the price. The bidders are all men.

Alina fights the urge to roll her eyes, choosing to abstain from understanding the concept of male pride. Instead she turns to face Nikolai, the same time he gamely offers her his ear. For all the world they appear to be in discussion about the bidding. “What are you doing?” 

“Securing an escape,” he responds with a straight face, looking just off to her right, where the other remaining bidder sat. The third—located on the other end of the room—has already bowed out.

The resolute thump of a gavel interrupts their conversation.

“And…. sold! To the couple in the back.” The auctioneer hits his gavel again. “Ladies and gentlemen, it seems like we’re starting off high and generous.”

The crowd responds with polite applause. The painting is removed gingerly from its pedestal by assistants and then replaced with another piece of art, this time a clay sculpture.

“Let’s go.” Nikolai has taken her hand, and is beginning to pull her up.

She looks questioningly at him.

“To collect our painting, of course. Like the auctioneer has said, it’s a masterpiece.”

Alina yields, allowing herself to be pulled up. They leave, bowing slightly and offering amicable smiles at people they know in the audience.

They escape into a side room that is empty of people, save for a few assistants lounging about and texting on their phones.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what, this?” Nikolai holds up a bulky art folder he’s carrying and winks. “Really, Alina, must you always place such little trust in me? Everything I do is for the heist.”

Alina scoffs at the way he says the final sentence, like it’s a bloody slogan. He’s avoiding the topic, and she knows it. So she settles for looping her arm through his, lips curving in mild satisfaction when he tenses at the gesture.

Then Nikolai proceeds to wave a wry hand, and everything falls at his feet. And every _one_ , it seems. One of the previously cold, cold assistants has thawed from her post; now she trails him and meets every query with a saccharine smile and the posh titter-totter of those needlepoint heels.

“How convenient!” Nikolai exclaims when he swipes his card on a proffered handheld machine, like a child discovering a new function hidden inside a toy.

The salesgirl beams at the praise, even as she most likely has nothing to do with the payment system except for the brainless task of administering it.

Alina wanders close to peek at the amount, then shies away at the number of zeros splashed upon its screen.

“Thank you, Mr. Lantsov,” the girl practically beams again as she hands over the artwork they had bid for and won, meticulously wrapped and tied with string. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.” Her ponytail bobs enthusiastically in time with her movements.

And Alina feels practically invisible. She ignores the prickly sensation—envy, something or the other—bubbling inside her, approaching a door positioned off to the side, emblazoned with a “STAFF ONLY” sign and flanked by a card scanner. According to the blueprints, it should lead them to the storage room where the painting is stored. On the pretext of reading an artwork label tacked next to it, Alina studies the scanner—German-made, magnetic, with a failsafe easily thwarted by sliding a metal spatula along its bottom gap—with one ear tuned to the conversation.

“Ah, there is this one other thing…” Nikolai trails off, appearing to weigh the words on his tongue. A thumb grazes his chin at the thought. “Oh, I doubt you’ll be able to help with that.”

It’s a feigned reluctance, a tactic that Alina has seen him deploy so many times.

The salesgirl has an open face, which blushes at the conspiratorial look that Nikolai is probably taking on. “Oh, anything I can possibly help you with, Mr. Lantsov.”

“Well…”

It’s disarming, she knows, or has known all these years. The trap is set, and so easily sprung.

“She could have acknowledged me but noooo. It’s Mr. Lantsov this, Mr. Lantsov that. Not even a—” Alina mutters, once they’ve stepped across the staff-only threshold and into the corridor.

They are on the fourth floor, looking out into an open-air atrium with a squarish footprint. Floors two through four are mere corridors that run along the perimeter, flanked by balustrades on one side and the occasional door on the other—leading to the other wings of the museum. There are no stairs leading up or down to any floor in this section, intended as a transitional area.

“It’s nice to know what you think, _Mrs._ Lantsov,” Nikolai says, emphasising her title.

“And I can’t believe she fell for that. ‘We’re in a hurry. Surely it’s a shortcut to the carpark.’ When was she born, yesterday?”

Away from the crowd, Nikolai chuckles freely.

“You’re one to laugh, sure.” Alina wags an accusing finger. “Just because I’ve seen it happen many times before, doesn’t mean I am wont to forgive you for it.”

He pulls her abruptly into a corner, until she feels her back hitting a pillar.

“A guard,” he murmurs, bending down to press his lips against hers.

It’s a flimsy excuse, a _stupid_ excuse—a flat-out lie, because she’s the one tasked with memorising the guards’ rotations. But she doesn’t push him away. Instead her hands fist around his lapel, before smoothing them down to feel their finery, their expensiveness. Now, she definitely believes his excuse of being fashionably late. 

She feels his breath dancing on her cheek when he pulls away slightly, discovering she’s now the one who is reluctant to disentangle. A grin suffuses Nikolai’s oh-so-punchable face.“You were saying, Mrs. Lantso—”

“Saints,” she curses, pushing him away.

“I’m hurt, Alina,” Nikolai calls after her, voice wounded. She turns and sees him rubbing his knuckles against his chest, right over his heart.

It’s the mournful look on his face that she can't take seriously. Alina rolls her eyes. “Be hurt, then. I only wish that you go about this more carefully.”

He recovers quickly, altercation smoothed over like a wrinkle in fabric. Another wink. "I refuse.”

“Shut up. Come over and help me set up this line.”

Leaning against the ivory-white balustrade, they are able to look down to the ground floor, but it isn’t much of a view. What appeared as a courtyard in old blueprints has now been repurposed into a storage space, closed off by a retrofitted wooden roof with low eaves. The only access from where they stood are two skylights symmetrically faced into the roof; to be unlocked or simply opened, Alina is about to find out.

They drift into a familiar routine when setting up the line, as they have done many times before, moving like creatures of habit—like seasoned partners in crime.

Alina tests the line with a yank. One end of it is wound around a nearby pillar, while the other has been secured to a second-floor railing on the opposite end of the atrium, the cable possessing some slack—so she’ll land right by the skylight. The metal wire glimmers, catching the light.

She frowns, not at the glare but at a growing headache, made worse by the near-noon sunlight reflecting off of the whitewashed facade. What is it with artistic institutions and their obsession with blinding-white colour palettes?

She rubs at her head, fingers brushing against taut hair. Oh. By touch alone she finds the hairtie constraining her hair and pulls it free with a shake of her head. Much better.

Alina hazards a glance back at Nikolai as she places a sure foot on the bannister, and then pauses. “Your mouth is open," she observes. Then Alina pushes herself off the edge, sliding along the cable—well out of reach of a witty comeback.

Alina thumbs the catch just before she goes sailing right through the skylight, glass be damned. Her heels graze its surface with a delicate _plink,_ before she manoeuvres herself to land beside the rectangle of glass. Crouching down, her hands run along its frame to feel for a pressure sensor, anything that would give them away.

Satisfied, Alina turns the handle and lifts the skylight up. She throws a thumbs up back up at Nikolai.

“Will it hold?”

“Yeah, it will. Come on down.”

A smooth slide of cable and he appears beside her, landing like a breeze.

“Showoff,” Alina huffs.

From the open skylight they drop down into a musty, disused storage room. Noontime light streams in from above, cutting a weary path through the floating dust motes in the air. The room is filled with second-rate artwork, placed here solely—definitely—because of the potential exposure to light.

“Here it is.” Nikolai lifts a frame, plucked out of several identical ones resting against a wall, and lays it on top of a crate.

He snaps on a pair of gloves—"You can never be too careful.”—and gets to work. Thin, spindly fingers, like a pickpocket's, unlatch the four corners, gently releasing the piece from its glass-fronted cage. He makes a meticulous show of lifting the glass, and freeing the painting.

“The folder, please, Alina.”

She hands it to him wordlessly. But it’s more of a throw, with a small “oof!” on his part.

From a hidden pocket, Nikolai retrieves an identical piece signed, “E. L.”The piece they bought just mere minutes ago—a rough crayon scrawl—sits in plain sight, ignored.

"Dmitry's best piece, I reckon,” Nikolai remarks appreciatively of the copy, referring to the resident art forger often engaged for their museum jobs.

"You don't have to be so careful," Alina says. Her irritation manifests in the hand that has come up to fiddle with an earring.

"Then when should I be, as you say"—he waves a gloved hand vaguely, the one unoccupied by a spatula—"Careful?"

She despises the way he throws her words back at her. Her lips loosen from annoyance alone. “I hate this.”

“Well, the lines could be more spontaneous and the medium of crayon better utilised, but are those the words you want to use to talk about a child’s artwork, a six-year-old at that?”

Alina throws up her hands. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, but you wanted the painting as well,” he says, not looking up.

“I clearly remember suggesting that you simply ask for it back. Not to retrieve it by _breaking into the Ravkan Art Museum on the day of the auction to switch it out.”_

“But this charity auction is for a good cause, you see, and I would never say no to my dear, sweet Katya—“

“Aren’t you better versed at demanding things from our daughter?”

“—taking the first step to becoming a budding patron of the arts by donating her own painting. Plus, haven’t you always wanted her to remain on the clean side of the family, whatever that means…”

“I wish we’d sent her to a normal school.” Alina unfurls the museum blueprint and begins tracing a finger along its many hallways. “Instead of this exclusive private school where everybody is somebody who knows somebody. All those painted-on smiles and superficial pawing. I mean, the other day Katya asked if she could go to a friend’s house by jet. Private jet! What is the world coming to? I cannot imagine the means the other children will have.”

“Eh, I’m sure Katya can deal with a little roughhousing or schoolyard bullying. In fact, she’ll even come out on top.” After removing the original piece painted by their daughter, Nikolai begins working in reverse to snap the forged painting in its place.

“But you’ve seen how the parents are like,” Alina counters, her thoughts going back to the auction room and its many prying eyes. She can still feel them now, rubbing her arm to rid herself of the sensation.

Nikolai turns serious. “She is brave, she is talented. She has her mother’s temper—” He is quick to emphasise the next few words before Alina can interrupt. “ _—which she puts to good use_ , and of course, her father’s wit. So if you ask me, yes, I think Katya can hold her own.”

“And if you ask me, personally I don’t care if they talk.” He answers her other, unspoken, question with a dismissive wave of a hand—ever impervious.

Alina lets the conversation trail off as she folds the map back up. Her steps echo in the cavernous space as she wanders to the back, to a shelf-filled section pushed against the wall and away from the light. Amidst half-open wooden crates and unearthed canvases, a gilded frame catches her attention. She resists the urge to reach out, to run her fingers along its frame as a precursor to carting it off. As a seasoned criminal, she can’t help but be drawn to the shiny stuff nowadays.

It’s a DeKappel,” Alina says when he comes to stand beside her, apparently complete with the switch.

"I know.” His hand, the one that’s still gloved, reaches over to pull it out.

She raises a single eyebrow. ”You know? You're handling that as if it's some second-grade knock-off print.”

“Very clever,” he observes, ignoring Alina’s comment. “Hiding the priceless in plain sight. Too bad it’s simply a very good fake.”

“What?”

“Oh, keep up with the times will you, Alina? The real DeKappel, to my knowledge, is currently hanging above a bed in the riverside mansion that belongs to our dear friend Alek—“

Alina makes for the other end of the room. “I don’t want to hear more.”

She pauses right in front of a door, freezing at the sight of two figures that stand, unmoving and blocking the light streaming in through the gap below. Alina chews the inside of her cheek. She turns on her heel. “Let’s try this other one.”

Without protest, Nikolai kneels down to work on the second door’s lock. “You’ve been casing the joint, I see.” His words are warbled by an errant pick held between his lips.

“Don’t call it that,” she shoots back, flapping a hand to get him to quiet down.

The light beneath the door gradually begins to dim.

“Then what should I call it instead? Checking the place out, scouting the stronghold or maybe…”

A shadow pauses just next to the door.

 _Pleasedon’tstepinpleasedon’tstepinplease—_ And in another part of her mind: _don’t step in or else we’ll have to knock you out._

Nikolai continues on, unfettered. “And I have an excuse handy already. Both of us, madly in love, sneaking away in the midst of a charity auction for a passionate trys—”

“Shhhhh!”

The shadow drifts away eventually, light returning along the entire length.

Alina exhales shakily.

At the same time Nikolai pushes the door open, leaving it ajar so it swings freely. “See? Easy.”

Rounding the corner, they arrive just in time to meld into the crowd drifting from the auction room towards lunch. But they’re quickly halted by a familiar voice.

“There you are!”

Ekaterina, their daughter, is angelic on first appearance, with honey-blonde hair that falls in curls that softly frames her cherubic face. A cherubic face that just so happens to be written over with impatience. The girl holds her hand on her hip just like her mother when she’s cross, but the smile plastered on her face is her father’s: to soothe, to plead—but to charm, mostly.

She’s clutching a folder that is large enough that she has to hold her arms high to avoid dragging it on the ground.

“Look!” Ekaterina exclaims, obviously pleased with herself. She holds the folder open for her parents to see. “I thought Mommy would want to have the original.”

Alina and Nikolai peer inside the folder, and pale.

The same painting. The same one. The very same one they just risked their careers—clean, criminal, it doesn’t matter—to steal.

“Ah, the one on stage looks just like the one you painted the first time!” Nikolai comments brightly, his tone off.

Then he pulls Alina close by the arm, an urgent whisper pressed against her ear. “I swear, Saints, it looked exactly like the one she painted—”

“—the first time,” Alina finishes, slowly exhaling and then crossing her arms. She’s torn between being angry or impressed. She settles on both.

“Did I do something wrong?” Ekaterina asks haltingly.

Nikolai hoists her up on his hip with an exaggerated groan. “It’s nothing, puppy. Your mother is simply mad that I was grossly late, with good reason.”

Ekaterina’s nose wrinkles at the pet name. She crosses her arms. “I’m not a puppy.”

“Of course, pup.”

Seemingly resigned or quick to forgive, her arms loop around her father’s neck. But Ekaterina turns to the side to whisper in her mother’s ear, just loud enough for her father to hear, “If you’re mad at Papa, I’m totally okay with that, because I am as well.”

Nikolai winces. Alina laughs.

“Oh, Katyusha,” Nikolai grins, the side of a finger coming up to nudge at her cheek. “You are undoubtedly your mother’s child.”

At the perceived affection Ekaterina hugs him, cheek pressed into his shoulder with a sigh.

 _Traitor,_ Nikolai mouths instead, over his daughter’s head.

 _Don’t look at me,_ Alina mouths back. “You’re complicit as well.”

Their daughter lifts her head, ears perking at the word. “What does ‘complicit’ mean, Papa?” Her inquisitive eyes are hazel, flecked with brown, looking from Alina to her father.

“Well, Katya, I think that’s a question for your teacher at school.”

Nikolai puts Ekaterina down when she spies her friends. The Lantsovs watch as their daughter run up to them.

Alina speaks first. “You taught her well.”

“Oh, Alina, I did no such thing.”

Neither of them is joking.

The smile on Nikolai’s face dims. Steps slowing, they come to the same conclusion—like tumblers simultaneously clicking into place. _“Dmitry_ _—_ _”_


End file.
